Last Post from Kenya

Well we head home tomorrow evening. It has been an unforgetable trip. But before I sign of from Kenya I'll tell you about today.

We went to Nanyuki Main and Women's Prison. It was a three hour drive but it was worth every minute. This is the smallest of the prisons I went to. The woman's side only had 25 ladies/4 kids. They were cooking their lunch over an open fire when we got there. Gateway International had given them a sewing machine and we got to see it in action. One of the inmates was using it when we got there. 14 women prayed to receive Christ there. The weather was iffy when it was time to go to the men's side, but we prayed and asked God to hold off on the rain till we were through.

The men side had about 500 inmates with about 250 accepting Christ. Also the rain held off until we were finished. God is so good!

As in all the prisons we've been to, afterwards we had to go the Officer In Charge's office for drinks and cookies. And then we were on our way.

One of the things I haven't talked about since I've been gone is the eye glass clinics, and I guess that's because I wasn't ever on one of those teams. But we had an eye doctor with us and at one prison every day we held clinics. The inmates that had eye problems or needed glasses were seen by the doctor and helped. This part of the trip has been very successful. Dr. Curtis so over 1200 patients since we've been here.

It's raining here now. I hope it stops before tomorrow as we are headed to the Game Park in the morning. I've been packing this evening so when we get back all I'll have to do is pack my souveniers.

One of the neat things about being on the team I was on today was that we crossed the equator. We actually stopped and took pictures at the actual spot. They know where the equator is because if you are north of the equator water drains in a clockwise position. If you are south of the equator is drains in a counter-clockwise direction. If you are right on the equator is drains straight. We saw this demonstrated and it's pretty neat. We also saw the largest mountain range in Kenya. Mount Kenya. It's about 17000 feet about sea level. Because of the clouds we couldn't actually see the top, but there is snow on the top all year round.

Well I'm coming home with about 2500 pictures (we're combining everyone's pictures on 4 CD's) so you will all be tired of hearing about it quickly. I've been humbled being on this trip. American's are so spoiled and have way too much stuff. Everyone needs to take a trip like this to be brought down a few notches.

Signing off from Kenya, until I see you all in person!

Time here is Africa is running out, but today was an awesome day. Our first stop was Mutuini Primary School. There were 920 students at this school. The children were very good. They stood on their lines for 30 minutes while we did our presentations. Below one of our team members is doing an object lesson using student volunteers.

Below is a picture of all 920 kids, from youngest to oldest. The girls were on the right and the boys were on the left.
This particular school had a nursery school and we went there afterwards. They sang a song with actions for us and then we handed out "sweets". They thought that was the best part.
The headmaster of the school is the gentlemen in the picture. We had some time to kill after the school visit do our driver "Sammy", who is the Gateway International Kenya Director, took us on a tour. We visited the school he went to when he was a child. And below is his church. That is him in the picture.
The next three are pictures at the hotel of the team getting ready to go out in the morning.

I wanted to show you some pictures at the hotel. This is the main gate which is guarded 24 hours.

Here are some of the beautiful gardens.
Oops, another gate you have to go through to get to your room. You need you key to go through.
More gardens.This is one of the four restaurants at the hotel. Three of them are outside.

Finally, last night we got to meet a lady who had been in prison for 7 years. She had gotten involved with a drug cartel by accident. She needed money. She ended up going to Washington and testifying against them. She has written a book and last night she gave each one of us a signed copy. That's her on the left.

We're off to another day!

Tuesday's Travels

This post won't be as long as some as it is bedtime and we have to be ready to leave at 7:15 in the morning. Today we traveled 3 hours each way and it made for a very long day. We went to Embu Main and Women's Prison. This morning at the men's prison it was awesome. Paster Stan preached on transformation and used the illustration of a catipillar and a butterfly and just as he was finishing a butterfly actually flew by. We had about 75% of the men to get saved out of about 400. They sang for us and then we had the service. This was the worse prison I have been in meaning the quarters where the men had to stay were awful. I've never been in a US prison, but I don't think our prisoners have to sleep in tin buildings with dirt floors, etc.
In the early afternoon we went to the woman's prison. This prison had about 80 women with 15 children. It is so odd to me to see little children running around the prisons, but that is what they do. This was also a good service. We left 2 brand new sewing machines for the women to use and they seemed really excited to have gotten them.
Now for my travel experiences. Today we didn't see any new animals, but did you know that they grow rice in Africa. I just always thought that Asia was the place for growing rice. Well, not so. We saw miles and miles and miles of rice fields today. They other thing we saw alot of was banana plantations. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

This picture is very clear, but I took it driving down the road. This is a banana tree.
This is rice growning.

On the Road

Greetings from Kenya. We traveled to the North this morning for about 2 1/2 hours to Naivasha. We visited the Main Prison, Annex and Women's prison. I'm still amazed that with all the prisons I've been in I've never once felt uneasy or afraid. Now remember we are taking all necessary precautions, but the inmates have always treated us very cordially. They really seem to be happy to see "the visitors". I believe with the three prisons today we saw over 1100 inmates and had 125 salvations. We also did an eye glass clinic and served 163 inmates. As on Saturday we had a wonderful driving experience. Today we saw zebras, gazelles, and a baboon on the trip. Lots of cows, sheep and goats. We also drove past the Rift Valley and this valley goes from Israel to the north all the way to Mozambique in the south. I've included some pictures. Some of you may know that Kenya had some difficulties after the elections last year and alot of towns were burned, etc. I've got a picture of a refuge camp where some of those mis-placed people are not living. Here's the pictures.

Above is a picture of the Refugee Camp I mentioned. A mini tent city.
This is the Acacia tree. Those of you up on your Old Testament might remember that many items in the tabernacle were made of acacia wood including the arc.

Above is the Rift Valley.

Day of Rest

Today was a day of rest, after church. This morning we attended Kahawa West Baptist Church. It was a fairly good size church. They had a tent set up in the front yard for overflow with a tv to watch. We were welcomed in the true African style. They served tea and soft drinks after church to our group. One of our team members is a 10th grader and his youth group back home had sent him with $50 to put to good use over here and he decided to give to the youth group at this church. We also met a young girl who is going to be a doctor and is leaving in December for Oklahoma to study.

This afternoon we played cards for most of the time. At 4:30 (9:30am your time) we had a short devotion and then dinner. It's 7:30 here and we have just gotten back to our room for the evening. Tomorrow we have an early start. We are leaving a 7:00 in the morning for a 3 hour drive. Just doing 1 prison tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.

Everyone is finally well. Thanks for all your prayers. Keep them up.

Until tomorrow.

A Wild Ride

Today we went to 3 prisons, but the wild ride came in getting there and coming home. It was a two hour ride on the bumpiest road I have ever been on. It was like riding on cobble stones that weren't leveled in the ground. It was so bumpy I hit my head on the roof of the van and scratched it pretty good. Along with that we saw some great animals in there natural habitat. (More about that later with pictures.) We went to the Machakos Main Prison, Machakos Remand Prison and Machakos Women's Prison. There were all at the same location, but separate from each other. I'm having trouble loading the pictures in the right order so I'll just tell you what's going on. Below is the Women's Prison. As you can see there are children. As I said before kids stay with their mother until they are 5 years old. (I don't know what happens after that.) We even had a mother breast feeding right out in the open.

I took these pictures out the van window on the ride home to give you a feel for the terrain in Kenya. I would relate this to a small strip mall, but very shabby. Though this is much better than most as you will see.

This a gas station, but the animal you see in the middle close to the first set of pumps is a cow. Yep there were two of them. Also right after we got by this station we watched a goat go over and drink out of the window washing liquid. Cows and goats are very common walking down the street. Sometimes in the median or crossing the busy highway. Right at this gas station one of the cows started to cross the street and I guess he realized it might be a little dangerous.

This picture shows two people walking on the side of the highway. This is very common. Lots of people walking on the side on the highway.

This is a shot of what we were seeing driving home. Those buildings are not in very good condition.

This is at the men's prison this morning. It was set up like a court yard with rooms on 3 sides where the prisoners stayed. I watched at least 15 men come out of one room. The smoke is coming from the outdoor kitchen which is set up in the middle of the court yard. Lots of smoke while we were there. The item in the middle is a drum that they used while they sang for us. They also had a tamborine and two other instruments I didn't know the names of. All percussion type instruments. This prison actually had a choir and conductor that sang for us. They were very good. They didn't have prison stripes on, so we figured the didn't have to wear them because they were in the choir.

The man on the right is part of our team. He was preaching here and using one of the inmates for an illustration. The man on the left is the translater.

Again the man on the left is the translater and the preacher is a team member. This is Mark Wright, the youth pastor at Arlington. Some of you may have heard me talk about his boys, Seth (2) and Blake (7 mos). The really cute ones that I'm madly in love with. This was taking place at the Remand Prison. I mentioned before these guys haven't been convicted yet, awaiting trial; hence no striped uniforms.

More of the prisoners. We had about a half-dozen new testaments to give away and they were fighting for them. That's something you'd never see in the US.

This is at the Women's Prison again. The girls on the right are singing a song for us. They also had a drum and were very good.

Now the shots below were taken out of the van window on the way to the prisons this morning. The first picture is a school of some sort, I believe. The picture below shows how dirty the landscape is. Someone said this morning they were glad we had littering laws, because if we didn't our landscape would probably l0ok this bad.

This picture on the left shows road side stands. There are hundreds of these as you riding down the road. The next picture is a road side stand of sorts also. Can't really tell what they were selling here.



Here was the highlight of the day. Giraffes. We saws groups of them 3-4 times this morning. They roam like deer do in North Carolina. It was so cool to see them in their natural habitat. We also saw an ostrich, camels, and wildebeest. This about finishes up Saturday. Tomorrow morning we are going to church and we have the afternoon off. Don't know what we'll be doing.

I mentioned yesterday that we had two that were sick. Well the doctor is much better. The other man ended up in the hospital last night dehydrated and his blood sugar skyrocketing. He is home tonight. They determined that he had food poisoning, but he didn't eat anything the same as the doctor. We have narrowed it down to the lettuce he had in his salad. No more lettuce for anyone. Everyone should be back to work by Monday. I did get sunburned pretty bad. It's not because I didn't use the sunscreen. It's the medicine I'm taking, but I'm not about to stop taking it. Just keep us all in your prayers.

A Little About Nirobi

Here's a little history. Africa is a continent which has 53 countries. Kenya is a country about the size of Pennsylvania. Nirobi is the capital. It's a very dirty city. Today we actually road through downtown. The city itself isn't very modern, but there are large buildings. The roads are awful, not well kept up at all. There are alot of roadside stands. We road down one road the had 15 or so roadside stands side by side and they all sold the same thing. Bananas were hanging up, and all kinds of fruits were sold. I have seen meat markets that had raw meat hanging in the window (pork and beef). Today I also saw a market were they had chickens in cages for sale. There are hawkers that try and sell you stuff while you are at the stop signs. I mean all kinds of stuff from sunglasses to lampshades and pictures to hang on the walls.

It's really kind of hard to describe because I've never seen anything like it. There are lots of cars in the city, but today our journey took us about 30 minutes out of town and a lot of people were walking on the side of the roads. Coffee is a big cash crop here and we went by miles and miles of coffee plantations.

The hotel that we are staying at is like a resort. Very nice. In fact when we are inside the compound you wouldn't know you were in Africa. It is gated and guarded. We are right across the street from the Israli Embassy. The first night we got here I saw armed guards on the street and thought what have I got myself into. Today we went by the American Embassy. Nothing flashy in fact if you missed the sign you wouldn't have known it was there. We've had some sick people today. Our eye docter, Doctor Curtis spent the night throwing up, but was able to go out today. Please pray for him, he didn't come to dinner so I don't think he's much better. We had another man who is still sick (he didn't come with us today) and he is diabetic and having trouble with his sugar. Pray for him also.

Never fear - I'm taking my malarone for malaria and cipro for every other kind of infection. I'm brushing my teeth with bottled water and disinfecting my hands after every visit. Now to today. This morning we went to Gitathuru Boys Rehab Center. These are boys who have done petty crimes, rioted in school, or can't get along at home. They stay at this center until the 8th grade no matter when they go in. (That's the information I was able to get today). There were about 125 boys. The funniest thing happened when we got there this morning. The boys were lined up and being counted. When all of sudden the whole bunch of them went running into the pasture. A cow had fallen over and they had to pick him up and put him back on his feet. Which they did and came back and got in line. It was one of those things you probably had to be there to get it, but we are still laughing at how it all happened. We brought soccer balls and candy to this group and if you could see how excited they get with a bag of sweet tarts you would want to sent 1000 bags over for them.

The second thing we did was go to Kirigiti Girls Rehab Center. This was a small school also. Today is a national holiday here so the girls had the day off from school and when we got there they had just finished washing some clothes so they were laying all over bushes and the grass to dry. This school does quite a bit of vocational training and Gateway Missions had donated a couple of sewing machines for them so they were very appreciative of that. They were very excited that we were there.

We stopped for our snack lunch, (protein bar today), and then we went to the Kamita Prison for youth. These men are only in for 4 months. They have commited petty crimes like rioting, or picked up off the street, etc.

At each place we each have the opportunity to say something, then a message is preached and they are given the opportunity to accept Jesus. After that, if appropriate and time allows, we spend a little one on one time with them before we move on. Now here are some of the pictures I promised. The first picture are the little children we saw on the first day. They kept calling for the wezongas to come take their picture.

This next picture is after we had given out friendship bracelets at one of the schools and I was helping to tie them on.

This shot is at the Langata Women Prison. As you can see, if their children are under 5 years old they keep them with them. There were quite a few children there that day.

This picture is of Charles Styles. He was the one who preached at the Womens Prison. The black man behind him is Simon. He is part of Gateway International and he was translating that day.

This is the sea of green. These kids are from Mbagathi Rd. Primary School.
That's it for now. It's bed time!

So Far in Kenya!

Since this is the first time I've been able to blog, I'll try and catch every on up on what's been happening since I left Rocky Mount on Monday Morning.

We flew out of Raleigh to Detroit (1.5 hours), From Detroit we flew to Amsterdam (7 hours). from Amsterdam to Kenya (8 hours). If you've never sat on an airplane for 16.5 hours I certainly don't recommend it. Your butt gets sore! We arrived at the hotel at 10:00 (3:00 your time) on Tuesday. I had my first frisking at security leaving Amsterdam. They said it was done randomly, but it was gross anyway. I won't go into details here.

The first day we didn't get started until after lunch because we had an orientation meeting in the morning. We went to Langata Women's Remand Prison. This is a prison where they've been arrested, but not tried. They don't know when they will be tried either. Some have been there for years. If they have children under 5 they keep their children with them. We had someone on our team preach a message and give an invitation. We think about 35-40 prayed to receive salvation. At the same time, we had a team that went to the regular Langata Women's Prison and do the same thing. I think they had 25 to be saved. The third team when to Kiambu Prison to do eye clinics. Those are set up so that you see the doctor, and if needed receive glasses and they you have to listen to the gospel message. They had about 58 saved.

There are 20 of us so each day we're divided into 3 teams. We are covering a lot more territory that way. Today my team went to 3 places. This morning we went to 2 primary schools. Now these schools I would guess had to be around 50 years old or more. The children all have to wear uniforms and each school is different. The first one had over 700 students. They sang songs for us and then listened while a couple of us did an object lesson. We handed out booklets to most of them until we ran out. The kids in this school were not very well behaved and were a little roudy, but they did appreciate us coming.

The second school is the school that Gateway International Missions has adopted. About 650 kids here. Again the school is very old but the kids don't seem to mind. I'm comparing it to what we have in the states, so they don't know any better. This group also sang for us. Then the kids who have sponsers ($10.00 a month sponsers a child) came forward and thanked us for all the work we've done and sang a special song for us. These children were much better behaved and we really felt a lot of love in the school. The head mistress is a christian and really loves the children and they love her. We did another object lesson and one on our team did a mini-sermon type message for them. He made it fun by playing a game with them to keep there attention. One of the team members had sponsered a child so she was able to actually meet her child and brought her a gift. This particular school went up to eighth grade. We learned that they have a mid morning snack of porridge (which they missed this morning because we were there) and lunch is maize and beans (every day). Sounds real appetizing. But in some cases it could be all they get.

Finally after a quick snack lunch (I had nuts) we went to the Nairobi West Prison. Now I've been to 2 prisons and both have been relatively clean. But I found out at dinner tonight that hasn't been the case with the other teams, so I feel like my time is coming. The one we went to today was a men's prison but the "Officer in Charge" is a women. She's been there for 3 years and has really turned the place around. New bunk houses, etc. Very clean and well kept. The one thing I have noticed here is they don't have much, but what they do have they keep up very well. This prison had gardens planted between the bunk houses and the grounds themselves all had beautiful flowers. This is a medium security prison. We saw about 200 today. We all had a chance to speak, but there was one main speaker. When we gave out the booklets at the end the women on the team had to stay on the platform. They are always looking out for our safety. The hard part about speaking is having a translater. Most of them understand some English, but they speak mainly Swahili. So when you speak you have to stop and let the translator speak.

Tomorrow I'm headed to a Girls and a Boys Rehab Center. This is like our juvenille hall. Kids that can't be controlled. In the afternoon we're off to another prison.

I haven't taken many pictures because we have one person taking pictures at each location. I tried to get some of them tonight to upload, but it didn't work. So'll I try again tomorrow.

I've learned a few words in Swahili. White people are called wazingos. At the very first place we went on Wednesday there were about 15 kids at a primary school located on prison property that kept calling for the wazingos to come and take their picture. They were so cute.

Tomorrow I'll share a little about what I've seen of Nairobi. Quite an interesting place.
Until then ...